Arnold's end

In the end, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career finished the same way it began: amid questions about whether he was a skirt-chasing Hollywood scoundrel, with California gripped by political dysfunction and another “Terminator” sequel on the horizon.

The movie star-turned-pol’s acknowledgment Tuesday that he had fathered a child in a long-ago liaison with a household employee served to remind the state that elected him to the governorship in 2003 of how little had changed since then.

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Eight years later, Sacramento was still in gridlock, the budget mess remained intractable and Arnold remained a glib, lecherous bad boy.

There was a time when it all seemed so promising. Bruised by the dot-com bust and the Enron-fueled energy crisis, Californians had pinned their hopes on Schwarzenegger to finally bring order to a state that seemed nearly impossible to govern.

The uninspiring Democratic Gov. Gray Davis couldn’t seem to get the job done; what was needed was an action hero. A Governator.

As momentum built for an October 2003 recall of Davis, Schwarzenegger emerged as an over-the-top parody of a take-charge politician. He stood on the steps of the state capitol waving a broom. He played air guitar while Dee Snider of Twisted Sister sang the band’s hit, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” — Schwarzenegger’s campaign anthem.

So great was Schwarzenegger’s star power, so great the public’s need for a savior, that when, weeks before the election, the Los Angeles Times published detailed allegations from more than a dozen women claiming Schwarzenegger had groped them, it seemed to hurt the paper more than it hurt the candidate.

“It was as damning a story as any story could possibly be,” recalled Larry Gerston, political scientist at San Jose State University. “And it had virtually no impact on the public.”

Schwarzenegger’s wife Maria Shriver, the beautiful journalist and Kennedy scion, was among those who vehemently attacked the stories. Thousands of readers canceled their subscriptions to the Times in protest. And a few weeks later, in a field of 135 candidates, Schwarzenegger won 49 percent of the vote.

Sweeping into office on this wave of excitement, Schwarzenegger enjoyed a brief honeymoon, quickly following through on campaign promises to roll back the vehicle tax, end driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and reform workers’ compensation, and rallying public support for a bond measure. To evade the state’s indoor smoking ban and underline his ethos of macho camaraderie, he erected a cigar-smoking tent in a courtyard of the capitol.

From the tent, he waged a formidable charm offensive, drawing even liberal Democratic legislators in with his overwhelming personal charisma. In May 2004, his approval rating was measured at 65 percent.

But the good times didn’t last. By the summer of 2004, the Governator was at loggerheads with legislative leaders over the state budget. Channeling the “Saturday Night Live” skit that mocked his bodybuilding persona, he referred to his opponents as “girlie men” and said voters ought to “terminate” them if they didn’t do his bidding.

The pugnacious attitude was a hit with national Republicans — he repeated the “girlie-men” line from the stage of the 2004 Republican convention — but Democrats bristled at both the rhetoric, which they called offensive, and the attempt to bully them into submission.

Schwarzenegger kept pushing, calling a 2005 special election for a slate of four ballot initiatives he termed his “reform agenda.” The initiatives, on the issues of teacher tenure, union dues, redistricting and state spending, were portrayed as his ultimate fight against the special interests.